Grown-Ish Gets Renewed for Season 2 on FreeForm

At today's inaugural Freeform Summit, during kickoff panel conversation featuring Kenya Barris and Yara Shahidi, among others, Grown-Ish executive producer alongside executive vice president, programming & development, Karey Burke, surprised series lead, Shahidi, with the news that the network has ordered a second season of the critically-acclaimed breakout comedy. The premiere, which boasted Freeform's highest debut for a comedy in nearly six years, also earned critical praise from Deadline, which called the series "straight up good, no -ish required," and BuzzFeed declared, "glows from the inside out."

Freeform's Grown-Ish, a half-hour comedy tackling current social issues and complexities facing both students and administrators, follows Zoey (PEsCDAuATXTAxs+|Yara Shahidi), Dre (Anthony Anderson) and Rainbow's (Tracee Ellis Ross) popular, entitled, stylish and socially active 17-year-old daughter from ABC's Emmy-nominated comedy Black-Ish, as she heads into her freshman year of college at Cal U.

Freeform's Grown-Ish out-delivered the channel's most-recent comedy debut by strong triple digits (Kevin From Work on 8/12/15) across all key demographics: Total Viewers (+111%), Adults 18-49 (+132%), Women 18-34 (+170%), Females 12-34 (+152%) and Female Teens 12-17 (+108%). In fact, Grown-Ish opened as Freeform's best comedy debut in nearly 6 years in Total Viewers, Adults 18-49 and Women 18-49 - since Baby Daddy on 6/20/12.

Competitively, the Grown-Ish debut opened as Wednesday's No. 1 scripted series on cable TV among Women 18-49, Women 18-34 and Females 12-34. The 8:00 p.m. debut of Grown-Ish was the strongest scripted comedy series launch on basic cable among Women 18-49 since April 2014 (MTV's Faking It), among Women 18-34 since July 2014 (FX's Married) and among Adults 18-49 since September 2016 (FX's Atlanta).

In the first 3 days after its launch, Grown-Ish generated 4.5 million views across linear and digital platforms, making the series the best digital debut in Freeform history. Freeform's Grown-Ish was Wednesday's No. 1 most social cable series with 214,000 engagements across Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Tumblr. Posting the biggest-ever L+3 increases of any Freeform comedy debut, Grown-Ish jumped by strong double digits over its L+SD numbers across key target demographics, soaring by +64% in Total Viewers (1.562 million vs. 953,000), +76% in Adults 18-49 (917,000 vs. 521,000), +80% in Women 18-49 (658,000 vs. 366,000), +79% in Women 18-34 (340,000 vs. 190,000) and +73% in Females 12-34 (448,000 vs. 259,000) after just 3 days of TV playback.

The series is produced by ABC Signature Studios and is executive produced by Kenya Barris, Helen Sugland, E. Brian Dobbins, Anthony Anderson, Laurence Fishburne and Julie Bean. Grown-Ish airs Wednesday nights at 8/7c on Freeform. Part of Disney|ABC Television, Freeform connects to audiences and goes beyond entertainment with bold, original programming and immersive social engagement. As Disney's young adult television and streaming network, it delivers a unique mix of quality original and acquired series, plus fan-favorite movies and the holiday events 13 Nights of Halloween and 25 Days of Christmas. The Freeform app allows viewers access to 24/7 live viewing of the network, as well as continued on-demand access via a wide array of devices.